. When complete, the project will include the entire city of Beijing (c. 1750) as well as a half dozen nearby landmarks, built using hundreds of rare historical maps, with everything accurate to it's appearance in time periods ranging from the mid-14th to the early 20th centuries.

. My description might be in error. After researching further, it seems this project has been running for almost two years *straight*. It's on a server, with a full team of helpers, so it probably has MORE than two years worth of man-hours sunk into it so far.

. The Guinness Record they're trying to break is for "Largest Historical 1:1 Scale Model Built By Users in a Sandbox Videogame". The record is currently held by a model of ancient Rome, built by some people in Second Life.

. The project lead, Bohtauri, estimates it'll take another ten years to complete. This is assuming his team starts "cheating" and uses a Java-based world editor to mass produce certain stock buildings. To do date, the project has been built almost entirely by hand; using traditional Minecraft building methods, the project lead estimates it would take a fifteen man team another one HUNDRED years to complete.

. Surprise! They're looking for donations! How does sound?

. Minecraft has a full library of very slick looking, high definition texture packs, many of which have been designed by professional artists, all freely available for download. Why a project this ambitious would insist on using such a crappy texture pack is anyone's guess.

. The city model spans an area of 256 square kilometers. Minecart trips around the perimeter take almost seven hours, real time, to complete.

. It's still only the 4th largest project on official Minecraft servers. There are at least three projects bigger than this.

Further details and a world save can be found here: http://www.plan etminecraft.com/project/project-1845/